Slicing machine



A. 2, I949. LE CONIE STILES SLICING MACHINE Filed Jan. 2, 1948 INVENTQR.

ATTORNEY Patented Aug. 2, 1949 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE SLICINGMACHINE Le Conic Stiles, Seattle, Wash.

Application January 2, 1948, Serial No. 70

6 Claims. 1

This invention relates to the art of slicing, and pertains especially toslicing machines of that character which I illustrate and describe in mypending application for Letters Patent of the United States filedNovember 13, 1945, Ser. No. 628,103, and which is to say a machineemploying a reciprocally acting knife working in a path substantially atright angles to the path of travel of the upper run of a conveyor beltand by its reciprocating slicing, at spaced intervals of the length, anelongated body of material moving with the belt.

The machine of the present invention, as with that of my said co-pendingapplication, particularly lends itself to the bakery art as a means ofslicing an elongated body of rolled or folded dough as one proceduralstep in the production of various forms of pastry, as for example,butter-horns, bear-claws, and the like, and while it is believed thatmaximum clarity in an understanding of the present invention willperhaps be advanced by considering the present machine as one expresslyapplied to the slicing of a travelling dough body, the teachings of theinvention obviously lend themselves to the slicing of other materials aswell and I therefore intend that the term dough" be construed in everyinstance of its occurrence as meaning any applicable substance.

Before proceeding with a detailed description of the invention, it maybe well to here point out that a reciprocally movable slicing knife mustperforce pass entirely through the traveling dough body in order tocompletely sever the slice from the following body of parent dough, andthis severing action consequently brings the shearing edge of the knifeagainst the dough-supporting surface of the conveyor belt. As a means ofcushioning the thrust of the knife against the surface of the belt, themachine of my referred-to prior application causes the belt to pass overa roller of neoprene or relatively soft rubber and applies the knifesuch that its thrust is transmitted to the belt on a plane more or lessradial to the roller. The belt gives slightly as the knife comes intocontact therewith and greatly minimizes the punishment to which the beltwould be subjected were the slicing knife to be made to work against anon-yielding belt. However, while this arrangement is quite effective inprecluding a direct cuttting of the belt, it fails to completely answerthe problem in that the belt, continually moving alon its own path ofprogressive travel while the knife slides in a relatively fixed planeperpendicular thereto, is caused to be worn down and, ultimately,shredded by the scraping action of the knifes shearing edge. In anearlier patent issued to me under date of April 4, 1944, No. 2,346,637,provision was made for momentarily interrupting the travel of the feedbelt in order to obviate this destructive scraping. In this patentedsystem the frictional purchase of the knife's shearing edge was reliedupon to .momentarily stop the belts travel and a springloadingarrangement was introduced in compensation therefor to thereafter takeup the lostmotion, but the consequence of the momentary stoppage was totransmit from the restrained belt to the knife a certain amount oflateral thrust. While efi'ective in prolonging the life of the belt, itdeveloped that the knife, in consequence of the lateral thrust.evidenced a tendency to bind in its slide-ways. Continued repetition ofthis slight binding action causes the sides of the slide-way to becomeworn, and even though this wear is slight and becomes noticeable onlyafter prolonged usage, the knife ultimately develops a sloppy fit andchattering sets in. The present invention aims to overcome thedisadvantages hereinabove referred to, and to provide an extremelysimple and yet durable assembly of parts so arranged as to obviate anyneed for an interruption of the belts travel and which will givetroublefree operation over long periods of usage with little destructivewear either upon the belt or upon the slide-way for the knife.

With the foregoing and other more particular objects and advantages inview, and which will appear and be understood in the course of thefollowing description and claims, the invention consists in the novelconstruction and in the adaptation and combination of parts hereinafterdescribed and claimed.

In the accompanying drawing:

Figure 1 is a fragmentary front elevational View portraying a slicingmachine embodying the preferred teachings of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a longitudinal vertical sectional view thereof on line 22 ofFig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary view taken to an enlarged scale on a sectionline corresponding to that of Fig. 2 but illustrating the knife in theperformance of its slicing action after having been moved through thedown stroke of its reciprocatory travel, there being incorporated in theview a showing of a rolled body of sheeted dough and a slice cuttherefrom; and

Fig. 4 is a view similar to Fig. 3 with several slices having been cutfrom the dough body and portraying the knife in its upward stroke ofreciprocation.

The machine of the present invention employs an endless belt denoted bythe numeral 5 and which acts as a conveyor to give continuous travel toa rolled body 6 of sheeted dough, the belt working about head and tailrollers with the dough body being fed in sheet form onto the head end ofthe belts upper run surface, usually direct from a sheeter whichordinarily is comprised of a pair of pressure-applying rollersdriven inopposite directions of rotation. Thesheet of dough, with an appliedsurfacing of a butter preparation frequently mixed with fruit or nuts,is rolled or folded in course of its longitudinal travel with the belt.

Leading off from the tail end of the conveyor belt 5 there is desirablyprovided a second endless belt I likewise working about-head and tailrollers and placed, by preference, such that its upper run is steppedbelow the upper run of the principal conveyor' 5. Only the tail rollerfor 'the upper-level belt 5 and the head roller for the lower-level belt1 are shown in the drawing, and these two rollers are denoted Ill and H,respectively.

In forming the roller |0,'I produce the same 'from neoprene or arelatively soft rubber in order that the same will be made readilycompressible under the pressure influence of the machines slicing knife,and this knife, which works from above and is designated l2, extendstransverse to the belt and is mounted for vertical reciprocatory actionthrough means of a supporting crosshead l3 having its end edgesjournaled in slide-ways I4 made rigid with a machine framework, driverrods l3 driven from a crank disc I6 finding wrist connection by pins I!with this cross-head to reciprocate the same.

The knife itself is produced from a thin sheet of highly resilient bladestock, and finds attachment only by its root end with the cross-head tohave the major part .ofthe blade depend therebelow and consequentlypermit the blade to flex more or less freely in a lateral directiontransverse to the cross-head. Themountingof the blade is such as topositionthe same longitudinal tothe, axis of the tail roller [8 andin'such rearwardly offset paralleling relation to a perpendicular raisedfrom such axis as to place the plane of the knifes reciprocationmore orless mid-way between the center of the tail roller and the extreme endlimit of the belts horizontal travel. As can be best seen from aninspection of Figs. 3 and 4, this placement of the knife offset beyondthe vertical plane ofthe rollers axis, in conjunction with the knifesflexibility, allows a shearing stress to take effect without. damage tothe parts, the cutting edge of theknife during itsmomentary contact withthe belt slipping off thereceding surface of the belt along a pathtangential to the latter. The velocity at which the knife moves in itsinitial shearing contact with the belt can, and preferably should, rouhly correspend to the speed at which the belt progresses. The knifedesirablyhas a sufficiently long stroke, and sufficient resistance toflexure, to accomplish a noticeable compression of the roller, and thereis this advantage to be. attained thereby, the elastic materialcomposing the rollerhas a re-active kick-back as it is freed from thecompressive influence of the knife ,andthis spring action, transmittedto the dough slice 20, flips the slice off the surface of ,the belt;tov,effiecti-v ely overcome any tendency of; the-slice to stick to thebelt.

The invention, the manner of its operation,

' posed of a thin-gauge resilient stock allowing the 4 and itsaccomplishments are believed to be clearly understood from theforegoing. While having illustrated and described the embodiment of theinvention now preferred by me, minor departures therefrom may obviouslybe resorted to without departing from the spirit of the invention, andit is my intention that the hereto annexed claims be read with a scopecommensurate with the broadest interpretation which the employedlanguage permits.

What I claim is:

1. Mechanism for slicing an elongated body of dough transversely atspaced intervals of the length as the dough body move-s in unison with asupporting conveyor belt and comprising, in combination with the belt,and with head and tail rollers supporting the belt, a transverselyextending slicing knife supported for reciprocatory vertical movementabove the tail roller and at the lower extreme of its travel findingcontact with the belt, said'knife being characterized in that theslicing edge thereof is readily deflectable in the direction of thedough bodys-travel by force of shearing stress transmitted from themoving belt to the knife.

2. Mechanism for slicing an elongated body of dough transversely atspaced intervals of the length as the dough body moves in unisonwith asupporting conveyorbelt and comprising, in combination with the belt,and with head and tail rollers supporting the belt of which the tailroller is of a readily compressible nature, a transversely extendingslicing knife supportedfor reciprocatory vertical movement above thetail roller and at the lower extreme of its travel finding contact withthe belt, said knife being-characterized in that the slicing edgethereof is readily defiectable in the direction of the dough bodystravel by force of shearing stress transmitted from the moving belt tothe knife.

3. Mechanism for slicing an elongated body of dough transversely atspaced intervals of the length as the dough body moves in unison with asupporting conveyor belt and comprising, in

combination with the belt, and with head and tail rollers supporting thebelt, a transversely extending slicing knife supported for reciprocatoryvertical movement above the tail roller and at the lower extreme of itstravel finding contact with the belt, the blade of said knife beingcomslicing edge of the knife to be deflected laterally upon its contactwith the belt.

4. Mechanism for slicing an elongated body of dough transversely atspaced intervals of the length as the dough body moves in unison with asupporting conveyor belt and comprising, in combination with the belt,and with head and tail rollers supporting the belt of which'the tailroller is of a readily compressible nature, a transversely extendingslicing knife supported for reciprocatory vertical movement above thetail roller and at the lower extreme of its travel finding contact withthe belt, the blade of said knife being composed of a thin-gaugeresilient stock allowing the slicing edge of the knife to be deflectedlaterally upon its contact with the belt.

5. The structure of claim 3 in which the mounting of the knife is suchthat the same works in a plane removed toward the tail end of the beltwell beyond a perpendicular raised from the axis REFERENCES CITED Thefollowing referenlces are of record in the file of this patent:

5 UNITED sTATEs PATENTS Nmnber Name Date 653,060 Betz July 3, 19001,852,630 Swinney Apr. 5, 1932 10 2,043,684 Walter June 9, 1936

